3 tips to make more money from your medical practice

When you are busy taking care of patients, dealing with emergencies and managing daily operations, it is easy to ignore growing and improving your organization. A more profitable practice will ultimately enable you to do more for your patients.

Here are 3 ways to increase the profits of your practice within the next few months.

Delegate.

If you often run behind on your daily census or your patients have to wait more than 2 weeks to see you,consider adding a nurse practitioner or a physician assistant to your practice. These non-physician providers are much less expensive than a physician and usually reimbursed at the same rate as a physician. Keep them busy to maximize the return on their compensation, which can approach nearly 100%. You can open your clinic earlier and close it later to boost the output of your non-physician staff. Then, delegate everything that does not require a medical license. If you are doing work for which you would not pay another doctor, stop doing it and delegate it to a non-physician today!

Build additional revenue streams.

In-office product sales, to the extent they are permitted, are a good source of extra income. For example, if you are a dermatologist, you could sell skin care products; if you are a general practitioner, you could sell nutrition supplements, blood pressure monitors and body composition scales; if you are an orthopedist, you could sell splints and braces; if you are an ophthalmologist, you can sell eyeglasses and if you are a pulmonologist, you can sell pulse oximeters. Many doctors have kiosks in their lobbies; their supplier takes care of inventory.

Viewpoints differ on whether in-office product sales create ethical concerns. However, experience shows that this is not an issue with most medical boards, and more practices are doing it every year. Patients love the convenience and medical practices could earn nice extra income, which may exceed $2,000 per month per physician. No extra work is required; most sales happen while patients are waiting for their appointments.

Another potential revenue stream is cosmetic and esthetic procedures. These perfectly fit the practices of generalists who are looking for extra income. OBGYNs are also participating and are offering microdermabrasion and laser hair removal, earning more than $30,000 a year.

Cosmetic procedures to offer include breast augmentation, liposuction / cryolipolysis, tummy tucks (abdominoplasty), skin lesion removal, tattoo removal, electroporation and varicose vein treatment. In many cases, when having a busy schedule, one may recover the equipment cost within 2 years or even faster. Training is easy to get from various providers, colleagues and equipment vendors.

Get your supply costs under control. 

Your profits depend not only on what you earn, but on what you keep after expenses. Find an efficient, value-conscious distributor and set up the approved supply list with them. That way, not only will you better control the costs, but your staff will spend less time choosing and ordering your items.